4 ms·

WSJ opinion pages has been publishing an alternate view to all of this that has at least been interesting. Specifically they have been articles by Bjørn Lombor

by kyrra 5y ago

WSJ opinion pages has been publishing an alternate view to all of this that has at least been interesting. Specifically they have been articles by Bjørn Lomborg. NYTimes has covered one of his books before too: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/books/review/bjorn-lomborg-false-alarm-joseph-stiglitz.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/books/review/bjorn-lombor... My take on his view of all of this is that the climate is going to change, and trying to fight/reverse that is a losing battle. Rather, we should take a multi-pronged approach and attempt to move away from carbon based energy (using carbon tax), but also start working to build up our infrastructure to deal with the changes that climate change will bring. I think the point of his WSJ pieces is to point out that even the worst case scenario of the climate predictions aren't that bad, because people adapt to changes in their environment (humans are really good at this). Here are the 10 pieces he's written leading up to the climate conference going on right now: https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-natural-disasters-ahr-river-flood-germany-wildfire-risks-11628177742 https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-natural-disaster... https://www.wsj.com/articles/flood-climate-change-ipcc-united-nations-infrastructure-deaths-cost-severe-weather-11631134276 https://www.wsj.com/articles/flood-climate-change-ipcc-unite... https://www.wsj.com/articles/hurricane-ida-henri-climate-change-united-nations-un-galsgow-conference-natural-disaster-infrastructure-carbon-emissions-11630704844 https://www.wsj.com/articles/hurricane-ida-henri-climate-cha... https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-heat-cold-deaths-medical-journal-health-risk-energy-cost-fossil-fuels-11631741045 https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-heat-cold-deaths... https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-world-doomed-gdp-warming-earth-11632338084 https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-world-doomed-gdp... https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-lockdown-climate-fossil-fuels-electricity-energy-production-africa-carbon-emission-11632943155 https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-lockdown-climate-fossil-f... https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-malnutrition-regulation-economic-growth-glasgow-conference-11633551187 https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-malnutrition-reg... https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-cost-economy-emissions-tax-per-person-net-zero-joe-biden-11634159179 https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-cost-economy-emi... https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-adaptation-panic-exaggerating-disaster-11634760376 https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-adaptation-panic... https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-activists-blow-smoke-on-wildfire-fears-adaptation-land-11635367688 https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-activists-blow-smoke-on...

skyfaller 5y ago
If humanity can't cooperate to prevent climate change, what makes you think we can cooperate to adapt to climate change? If one group of people dams a river to adapt to having less water, and another group destroys the dam so they have more water downstream, then pretty soon nobody has water and they're in a shooting war. If by adapt you mean "grab everything for yourself"... well, I think The Postman was a disturbingly prescient novel. In that story, nuclear war wasn't the real problem, the real problem was "survivalists" trying to grab everything for themselves and preventing society from reassembling. There is no amount of resources you can amass that will protect you from the war of all against all. We must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately. We must act now to work together to mitigate global heating and avert climate disaster, or when resources get scarce we will not be able to cooperate to divide up pieces of a smaller pie. And if you think the climate crisis will not destroy more than it creates... well, you don't understand the speed and scale of the catastrophe. The natural world cannot adapt at the speed we are changing it, and humans rely on the natural world.
- kyrra 5y ago
  I recommend reading his articles to understand what I say when I said adapt. It means things like: building more levees and farming different crops or in different parts of the country or world. Conflict over resources is always going to be a thing. But dealing with the changes to climate change is more than just how we handle limited resources.

by kyrra 5y ago

skyfaller 5y ago

If humanity can't cooperate to prevent climate change, what makes you think we can cooperate to adapt to climate change? If one group of people dams a river to adapt to having less water, and another group destroys the dam so they have more water downstream, then pretty soon nobody has water and they're in a shooting war. If by adapt you mean "grab everything for yourself"... well, I think The Postman was a disturbingly prescient novel. In that story, nuclear war wasn't the real problem, the real problem was "survivalists" trying to grab everything for themselves and preventing society from reassembling. There is no amount of resources you can amass that will protect you from the war of all against all. We must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately. We must act now to work together to mitigate global heating and avert climate disaster, or when resources get scarce we will not be able to cooperate to divide up pieces of a smaller pie. And if you think the climate crisis will not destroy more than it creates... well, you don't understand the speed and scale of the catastrophe. The natural world cannot adapt at the speed we are changing it, and humans rely on the natural world.

kyrra 5y ago
I recommend reading his articles to understand what I say when I said adapt. It means things like: building more levees and farming different crops or in different parts of the country or world. Conflict over resources is always going to be a thing. But dealing with the changes to climate change is more than just how we handle limited resources.